The Interaction Effects of Consumers' Political Identity and Moral Message Types on Brand Evaluation and Campaign Participation Intention

Baik, Youngho

Song, Eugene

For successful cause-related marketing, the moral message that resonates with a consumer’s mind is necessary. Based on Moral Foundation Theory(MFT), this study investigated the interaction effects of moral message types (care, fairness, loyalty, authority) and consumers’ political identity (liberals vs. conservatives) recently gained attention in the marketing area on cause-related advertising effectiveness. By political identity, liberals were more favorable to the care and the fairness messages than the loyalty and the authority messages in line with our hypothesis. However, contrast to our hypothesis, conservatives were more favorable to the care, the loyalty, and the authority messages than the fairness message (gender equality in the office), presumably because of traits of the fairness message (contrary to conservatives’ strong gender stereotype in Korean Confucian culture). By moral message types, liberals were more favorable to the fairness message than conservatives, and conservatives were more favorable to the loyalty and the authority messages than liberals in line with our hypotheses. But there was no significant difference in the care message (helping fasting children) between liberals and conservatives contrast to our hypothesis. This suggests that conservatives in Korea are as favorable to the cause-related advertising using the care message as liberals are unlike Western, presumably because of different traditional cultural background (“cheong” culture). Overall, the present research offers theoretical contribution that the congruent moral messages with liberals’ or conservatives’ moral values can enhance the effectiveness of cause-related advertising.